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So, Who am I?
Well, I'll tell you a little about me...
My name is Jerome and I'm from "Big D"-- Dallas, Texas. I'm a freakin' sports nut. Football and hockey are tops. I rep the Dallas Cowboys (yeah, I said it) and the Dallas Stars, and the Mavs too. Oh yeah, I like games too. That was an understatement. I love videogames. I got my first Nintendo at the age of five. and it just had such an impact on life. Not just figuratively, but physically. Man, I got so fat that summer. The next year when I started the first grade, I was the fat boy in class. But you know, it didn't slow me down.
Moving on, in high school I decided to not play football (but man, I wanted to) but rather to work and make some money! So I worked at Hollywood Video where I became manager/shiftleader while I was in school. Graduation was months away and I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but I just didn't know where to start! I wanted to make videogames, but I had never in my life heard of a school that taught it. So, I was forced to quit my job in order to find a college that would teach me what I wanted to know. Then I stumbled upon Full Sail Real World Education. It's an ever-so-expanding school that specializes in the entertainment industry and what caught me eye was the Game Design and Development program.
While I was there, I learned about every fascet of making a game. I learned to be a game designer: from level design, game balancing, story creation, character makeup, how to target your audience and more. I also became a real videogame programmer. I learned to take and interpret all of the documentation and vision of the game, plan it out, and turn it into code, and turn the code into a work of art. The whole time I was there, there was non-stop coding. Every day it was either simple console apps/tools, sifting through old code, or big team projects. The first "Really BIG" team project I worked on was a FPS called The Game. It is a first person, Mech shooter. It's pretty damn fun. I play it whenever I'm not adding new features to my version, cause a project is never done when you have the source and a little time...The second (and bigger) BIG game that I worked on is called King of the Mountain. This game was much bigger and a lot harder to create, but it also turned out to be a phenomenal game. The game design instructors at our school want to put it on display in an arcade cabinet and place it in the lobby! But that means a lot more work from me, but we'll talk...
Anywho, during the struggle I learned many things. And during that struggle, I also learned what type of programmer I am. I've found that I love to create user interfaces and it's fun creating new menu styles and HUD designs. Because every game is unique, well, they should be. And I've become quite fond of doing gameplay. It's cool to control how the game works and to bring all of the modules together to have the game be complete. (**sigh**)It's wonderful. Finally, I have a knack for developing and implementing new features. A cool, or just unique, way of implementing a feature can give your game all the style it needs to be different enough to catch an audience. So yeah, long story short, I'm an interface and gameplay programmer. I hate tech! But I'm working on an engine to kick that habbit. Not that I CAN'T do it, I just feel more comfortable with something I know I'm good at cause I hate tech!
Finally, I graduated with an Associate and a Bachelors in Game Design and Development in late 2004 and now I'm looking for work!